But there, happily for me, I was once more in the sunshine; and the sun, and all heavenly creatures, think scorn of no one. They smiled on me, a poor heap of ashes, as if I had been a tree-fern; and the gentle dews descended on me, as if had been a flower; and the birds and winds scattered seeds amongst us, until I began to feel once more something like the stirrings of life within me. I had blended my being with a little seed, and in the spring, green tufts of life burst out from my shrivelled heart. I grew, and spread, and drank in rain and sunshine, until at length I waved and expanded in the summer breeze—a little fern! Then a bright, transforming thought flashed through me. In the tropical forest, in the black coal-beds, on the glowing hearth, I had not been an imperfect likeness and a vague promise of something else, but myself, in my little degree, pleasant and serviceable; exactly the best thing it was possible for me to be, filling up my tiny measure of service in the world, so that the world would have been the poorer for that tiny measure of pleasure and good without me. How happy I might have been always, if I had known this before! How happy I am to know it now! I begin life again, but I have learned my lesson. I am something; not something great, but something I was meant to be—a little green happy fern. At this moment I tremble with joy in the soft breezes, I thrill with life, I drink the rain-drops, and the next moment and to-morrow will bring each its store of work and joy for me, and I shall be the highest thing I could wish to be, the thing I was made to be. And now I am here near the tall trees, and among the many-coloured flowers, a little, happy, lowly fern. Parables. The Clock-bell and the Alarm-bell. ————— "WE have lived a long time here together," said the ponderous Alarm-bell to the little brisk bell in the clock-tower of the Orphan-house, "and a useful life yours has been! I have watched carefully, and never once during these hundred years that we have stood side by side have you failed to tell the hours and half-hours by day and night. I have plenty of leisure for thought; but it would be beyond my powers to calculate how often your voice has been heard in the service of man. "I observe, too, how much attention is paid you by all, and with how much well-deserved respect you are regarded. Nothing is done in house or field without your sanction. At your early call, this little busy hive begins to stir in the morning. At your mid-day invitation, the boys gather from the fields where they have been working; and the girls from the laundries and workrooms to the noon-day meal. At your evening summons, the doors are closed at night, and not a sound is heard afterwards in house or field until your steady voice wakens our little world again.